"It's one thing to get a letter from your kid at camp, telling you he wants to come home," says two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and animator Walt Handelsman. "It's another to get a letter from a grown child saying they're coming back to live with you!"

As so-called boomerang kids become increasingly common in a tough economy, Handelsman's take on the old Allan Sherman song "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah!" is especially timely, and maybe a little poignant.

"What I especially like is the way the members of this family love each other dearly," he says. "They're just getting in each other's way. There's no sourness about it. It's just a funny living arrangement."